In this seminal work, Khaled Abou El Fadl analyzes the construction of the authoritative and authoritarian in contemporary Islamic discourses. He argues that authoritarian discourses negate the authoritativeness of Islamic religious texts. Drawing upon pre-modern Islamic sources and debates, Abou El Fadl demonstrates the rigor and discipline required to appropriately analyze and construct contemporary Islamic legal discourses. He presents a methodology by which the authoritative is preserved and the authoritarian avoided.